


Morning Song

by dollsome



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A happy morning. (Xena and Gabrielle: The Early Years.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Song

'I sing of Xena!' Gabrielle declares, her tones too cheerfully epic for early hours of the morning. 'Fiercest of warriors, boldest of champions--'

Here's the real story: a passing thief tried to make off with the last of their bread. Xena punched him in the nose. He ran. Cried a little, too. Definitely an easy gig.

'--Men cower in fear! Injustice hides its face in shame! The very stones of the earth quiver and tremble!'

'Do you want breakfast or don't you?' Xena asks, impatient. She bites her cheek to keep from smiling. The sky is a luxurious stretch of blues and pinks and newly risen sun. Gabrielle is minuscule against the sky, the green sloping stretch of the land, and yet she is somehow so central to it. No one's eyes could help but move to her, surrounded by beauty or not. She skips and shouts and waves her hands, entirely foolish and undeniably sweet. The faint breeze teases her hair -- her hair seems to tease it back, turned even golder by the sun.

'Gabrielle--'

'(Shhh. Shh. Just a minute. Almost done.) _FIE!_ cry the fiends who meet her -- LIVES RUINED! BLOOD SHED!--'

'Over half a loaf of bread?'

'Ooh! Excellent rhyme. You don't mind if I borrow that, do you?'

'Go right ahead,' Xena says dryly, and gets to work toasting the retrieved bread.

Gabrielle comes back down to earth and Xena's side, still radiant, lit by stories yet to be written down.

'You don't have to chronicle everything, do you? That was hardly an adventure. He couldn't even take more than one punch.'

'I write it all down,' Gabrielle answers promptly.

'Why?'

'Please! I can't rob future generations of a single one of your mighty feats. And besides,' she adds, the grandiose bard's tones falling out of her voice, 'that way I know I won't forget it. Any of it.'

She smiles. The breeze whips her gold hair around her face, into her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Xena reaches forward and tucks it gently, carefully back behind her ear. Gabrielle seems to find this answer enough, and Xena's grateful. Actions have always been more her forte than words. The idea of perfect memory as a blessing rather than a burden ... Not for the first time, Gabrielle herself seems like something of a (scarily energetic, maddening, unasked for, much-cherished) miracle. All early mornings and new eyes. Fresh starts.

Gabrielle frowns down at the toast that she's snatched out of Xena's hand, never mind that she has her own piece. 'Is this blood?'

'His nose _was_ broken,' Xena says fairly. 'And he was keeping the bread very close.'

Gabrielle wrinkles _her_ nose and delicately picks the darker portion off, tossing it on the ground.

'Maybe,' she says, 'I'll leave that part out,' making Xena laugh.


End file.
